€%**-* £L^L^ 



ON THE 



RULES AND STATUTES 



OF THE OFFICE OF 



"PREACHER TO THE UNIVERSITY AND PLUMMER 
PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS," 



V 




AT 



HARVARD COLLEGE, 



s 



AYITH THE 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE OVERSEERS THEREON, 



APRIL 12, 1855 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MAHVIN, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 

1855. 



m 



**■ 



•> v. 



. • > 



REPORT 



ON THE 



RULES AND STATUTES 



OF THE OFFICE OF 



-PREACHER TO THE UNIVERSITY AND PLUMMER 
PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS," 



AT 



HARVARD COLLEGE, 



WITH THE 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE OVERSEERS THEREON, 



APRIL 12, 1855. 




BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 

1855. 



k>> wx] 



K 



PLUMMER PROFESSORSHIP. 



At a Meeting of the Board of Overseers of Harvard 
College, held in the Senate Chamber in Boston, on the 
12th day of April, 1855, His Excellency the Governor in 
the chair, the Hon. Robert C. Wenthrop presented the 



following 



REPORT. 



To the Honorable and Reverend the Board of Overseers 
of Harvard College, the Committee to whom were 
referred the " rules and statutes of the office of 
Preacher to the University and Plummer Professor of 
Christian Morals," respectfully submit the following 
Report : 

It appears that Miss Caroline Plummer, of Salem, 
by a codicil to her last Will and Testament, dated 
9 March, 1845, made provision for establishing a 
new Professorship at Harvard College as follows : 

" The estate of my late (entirely beloved) brother 
Ernestus Augustus Plummer, having fallen into my 
hands for disposal thereof, and I wishing to bequeath 
it as I think would be most agreeable to his wishes, 
do now, in fulfillment of what I verily believe would 
have been his wish, give and bequeath the sum of 
Twenty-five Thousand Dollars to the President and 



Fellows of Harvard College, which I direct to be 
safely invested and put at interest, and the income 
thereof to be forever appropriated for the support of 
a Professor of the Philosophy of the Heart and of 
the Moral, Physical and Christian Life in Harvard 
University, whose province it shall be, according to 
rules and exercises established from time to time bv 
the said President and Fellows, and on the basis of 
Christian faith and love, to enlighten all who are or 
may be engaged in the education pursued there, 
whether governors, instructors or students, in the 
manner of discharging their respective duties, so as 
best to promote generous affections, manly virtues 
and Christian conduct, and more especially, to aid 
and instruct the students in what most nearly con- 
cerns their moral and physical welfare, their health, 
their good habits, and their Christian character, act- 
ing towards them, by personal intercourse and per- 
suasion, the part of a parent, as well as that of a 
teacher and friend." 

It was furthermore provided in the same instru- 
ment as follows : 

" The Professor shall be of the Christian religion, 
and a Master of Arts, and bearing the character of a 
learned, pious, and honest man. He shall be elected 
by the President and Fellows, and approved by the 
Overseers of Harvard College for such a term of 
years as may by them be ordered." 

The Testatrix adds : "As a tribute to the mem- 
ory of my late dear brother, my w T ish is, that this 
contemplated Professorship should forever bear his 
name." 

It further appears that, by a subsequent instru- 



ment, the amount devoted by Miss Plummer to 
the purpose thus set forth, was reduced to Fifteen 
Thousand Dollars. 

It appears also, that the Corporation of the Col- 
lege, on the 5th of July last, — the death of Miss 
Plummer having previously occurred, and the con- 
tents of her Will having been communicated to 
them, — passed the following vote : 

" Voted, That the President and Fellows of Har- 
vard College accept the liberal donation of Miss 
Plummer, upon the terms and conditions, and to the 
trusts and purposes and intent therein expressed, 
and that notice thereof be given by the President 
in suitable terms to the Executor." 

[t appears, finally, that w 7 ith a view to carry out 
and fulfill the provisions and conditions of the foun- 
dation thus established on their part, the President 
and Fellows have adopted, and have now submitted 
to the Overseers for their approbation, the following 
Rules and Statutes : 

I. The Professor shall be styled " Preacher to 
the University and Plummer Professor of Christian 
Morals." 

II. To be eligible to this Professorship, the Can- 
didate must be a Master of Arts, and an ordained 
Minister of the Gospel, bearing the character of a 
learned, pious and honest man. 

III. His duties shall be : 

1. To conduct the daily devotions in the College 
Chapel. 

2. To be the preacher and pastor of those who 
worship in the College Chapel on the Lord's Day. 

3. To give such moral and religious instruction to 



6 

the undergraduates, whether by lectures or recita- 
tions, as shall be agreed upon in the assignment of 
studies by the College Faculty. 

4. By counsel and sympathy, by personal inter- 
course, occasional voluntary meetings, and other 
suitable means, to warn and guard the students 
against the dangers to which they are exposed ; to 
supply, as far as may be, their need of home influ- 
ences, and to promote among them an earnest Chris- 
tian faith and life. 

IV. It shall be at the option of the Professor, 
whether to belong to the College Faculty or not. 

V. The Professor shall hold his office by the same 
tenure generally, as the other Professors on founda- 
tions, and shall be subject to removal by the Presi- 
dent and Fellows for any cause by them deemed just 
and sufficient, the Overseers consenting thereto. 

VI. The President and Fellows, with the concur- 
rence of the Overseers, shall have authority to 
revise and amend these Rules and Statutes from 
time to time, as they see fit ; provided only, that no 
changes are introduced inconsistent with the con- 
ditions and the general purpose of the foundation. 

In the judgment of your Committee, two distinct 
questions are thus presented for the consideration of 
the Overseers : 

1. Will they concur with the Corporation in 
establishing a new Professorship, in conformity 
with the Will of the late Miss Caroline Plummer ? 
and 

2. Will they assent to the Rules and Statutes 
which have been submitted to them by the Corpora- 



tion for defining the qualifications and duties, the 
title and the tenure, of the new Professor ? 

In the course of their deliberations, the under- 
signed have found frequent occasion to regret, that 
any nomination of a candidate for the contemplated 
Professorship had not been withheld until these 
questions, or at least the first of them, had been con- 
sidered and decided by the Overseers. And they 
trust they shall not be thought wanting in proper 
respect for the Corporation, if they put upon record, 
at the outset of their report, a distinct expression of 
opinion, that the practice which has now been twice 
repeated within a brief period, — and which may 
perhaps rest upon a longer usage and upon better 
reasons than they are aware of, — by which the nomi- 
nation of a candidate is presented simultaneously 
with the original proposition for the establishment 
of a new office, is calculated to create misunder- 
standing between the two Boards, to embarrass and 
prejudice the action of the Overseers, and particu- 
larly to do injustice to the candidate, who is thus 
exposed to be held in suspense, and even to be 
practically rejected, upon grounds entirely indepen- 
dent of his own merits. 

Your Committee hope that it may be expressly 
understood, in the present instance, that the delay 
of this Board has thus far resulted solely from the 
desire to discharge their duties deliberately and inde- 
pendently, upon questions of the highest interest 
and importance, and which are entirely disconnected 
from any personal considerations whatever. 

It would be idle to attempt to disguise the fact, 
that the proposal to establish a new Religious Pro- 



8 

fessorship at Harvard College, from whatever quar- 
ter and under whatever circumstances it mav come, 
is regarded with extreme sensitiveness and jealousy 
in many parts of the State. A deep feeling undoubt- 
edly pervades the whole Commonwealth, that this 
ancient and venerable University ought never to be 
permitted to become a mere sectarian Institution, 
and that no new door should be opened for giving 
undue preponderance to any special theological 
views. The undersigned sympathize sincerely and 
strongly with this feeling, and they would be among 
the last persons in the community to give their sanc- 
tion to the contemplated Professorship, if it were 
intended to be employed in securing an additional 
predominance to any one religious denomination. 

But there is, they believe, a feeling not less deep, 
nor less pervading, in Massachusetts, that a greater 
measure of religious influence than now exists, is 
essential to the welfare of our seminaries of learning, 
and of the University at Cambridge as one of them, 
and that some new measures may well be devised 
for this end. The Overseers themselves, through 
their Visiting Committee, have, at two successive 
annual meetings of the Board, given expression to 
their opinion upon this subject, and have commend- 
ed it to the particular attention of the Corporation. 
On one occasion, this was done in the form of 
solemn Resolutions in the following words : 

" Resolved, That there is need of more direct 
religious influence in the College. 

" Resolved, That the Corporation be requested to 
take immediate measures to supply the same." 

These Resolutions were the result of long and 



careful deliberation by a sub-committee combining 
gentlemen of almost every variety of religious and 
political connection, — consisting of Hon. Edward 
Everett, Hon. George S. Boutwell, Rev. Dr. Gan- 
nett, Rev. R. A. Miller, and Rev. Dr. Sears, — and 
they were unanimously adopted by the Visiting 
Committee, and accepted by the Overseers at the 
January meeting of 1854. 

The death of Miss Caroline Plummer, of Salem, 
on the loth of May following, and the devotion of 
so considerable a sum to the purpose prescribed in 
her Will, at the very moment when the Corporation 
must, have been at a loss how to proceed in com- 
plying with the recommendation of the Overseers 
for want of precisely such a foundation, — is, to say 
the least, a very striking coincidence. Our Puritan 
Fathers, by whom the College was founded, would 
have regarded it as something more than a fortunate 
accident, and would have given it a place in their 
catalogue of remarkable providences. 

But it would certainly be a not less striking fact, 
if, under all these circumstances, the Overseers 
should now find cause for declining the bequest, 
rejecting the foundation, and receding from their own 
twice repeated recommendations. 

In the opinion of the undersigned, the proposed 
foundation is one which meets those precise wants 
of the College which were aimed at by the Over^ 
seers in their resolutions of January, 1854, and 
which w T ere again urged upon the attention of the 
Corporation, in the Annual Report of the Visiting 
Committee of the present year. Nothing can be 
plainer, than that the object of the Testatrix was to 



10 

provide for " a more direct religious influence in the 
College," and to do this, not through the medium of 
recitations and lectures, by which the intellect only 
should be sharpened and disciplined for religious 
speculation and theological controversy, — but by 
such exercises and appeals as should reach the heart 
and the life, promoting generous affections, manly 
virtues and Christian conduct and character. Chris- 
tianity > and not sectarianism ; pure and undefiled 
religion, and not dogmatic theology ; the faith of the 
gospel of Christ, and the virtues which are its legiti- 
mate fruits, and not scientific creeds or human cer- 
emonials ; — these were unmistakably in the contem- 
plation of the excellent lady by whom this Professor- 
ship was provided for ; and nothing other than these 
could have been in the minds of the Overseers, when 
they urged upon the Corporation the need of more 
direct religious influence in the College. 

It is an interesting fact in this connection, and one 
which should not be lost to the history of the ques- 
tion, that the original idea, and the precise language 
of the foundation under consideration, were derived 
from a discourse delivered many years ago, before the 
Alumni of Harvard, by one of the most respected of 
their number, who was for a long time a member of 
this Board, and who still 'lives to witness the result 
of his timely suggestion. 

In the address of the Hon. Daniel Appleton White, 
of Salem, delivered at the second celebration of the 
Association of the Alumni, on the 27th of August, 
1844, will be found the following passages : 

" We rejoice in every act which raises the dignity 
and extends the usefulness of our time-honored Uni- 



11 

versify. Her professional schools are public bless- 
ings. That of the Law, the most recently estab- 
lished, cannot fail to be instrumental in spreading 
through the country those sound and broad prin- 
ciples of jurisprudence, not unmingled with New 
England influence, which are the safeguard of the 
Constitution and the Federal Union. If need be, 
let a School of Philosophy be added, which may 
answer the wish, sometimes expressed, that every 
American College might be a sort of Lowell Institute 
to the region in which it is placed. But let our 
Alma Mater never forget her first love ; let nothing 
ever interfere with her original and main design, the 
education of youth, the training up of wise and 
good men and ripe scholars, to be guides of their 
countrymen and ornaments of mankind. 

" ' Out of the heart are the issues of UfeS The 
wisest philosophers and teachers, of all ages and 
nations, Gentile, Jew and Christian, Plato and 
Plutarch, not less than Solomon and Paul, have 
attached the highest importance to moral culture, to 
the training of the young in the way in which they 
should go. 

" Nor is this doctrine confined to professed 
teachers and philosophers. Profound and practical 
jurists, who, in the course of their studies and 
duties, take the keenest glances into human nature, 
still more emphatically proclaim it. l Nothing,' says 
an eminent English justice, of the last century, ' is 
more pestilent than powers of intellect undisciplined 
by virtue.' A more eminent justice of the United 
States, chief justice really, if not executively, incul- 
cating, in his address to a grand jury, the indispen- 



12 

sable necessity of morals and intelligence to a repub- 
lican people, declares, in a loftier tone and with 
characteristic energy, that intellect disunited from 
morals operates like a tornado, destroying every 
thing in its course, to accomplish its own selfish and 
wicked purposes.' " 

" Let the next foundation laid here in aid of edu- 
cation be, a Professorship of the Philosophy of the 
Heart and the Moral Life, Would not light emanate 
from such a source to guide in their duties all who 
are connected with the University — legislators, gov- 
ernors, teachers, students, Alumni ? Might not a 
lofty and pervading spirit be diffused, uniting all 
more clearly, more earnestly, and more intelligently 
in their aims and efforts to. educate the true man, as 
well as to produce the fine scholar ?" 

In little more than six months from the delivery of 
these sentiments, and while they were still fresh from 
the press, the original codicil containing the bequest 
under consideration was prepared and executed; and 
the merest comparison of dates and language would 
be abundantly sufficient, even were other testimony 
wanting, to establish the identity of views between 
the author of the Address and his estimable friend 
and neighbor by whom the Professorship was 
founded. 

The undersigned need hardly add, after what has 
thus been said, that they see nothing of evil to be 
apprehended, but, on the contrary, every thing of 
good to be hoped, from the establishment of such a 
Professorship, and that they, therefore, cordially 
recommend to the Overseers a concurrence with the 
Corporation in the acceptance of the bequest, upon 



13 

the terms and conditions, and to the trusts, purposes 
and intent, expressed in the codicil which has been 
heretofore recited. 

II. The second question involved in the record of 
the Corporation which has been referred to jour 
Committee, relates to the particular Rules and Stat- 
utes which are proposed for the Plummer Professor- 
ship. 

These are few and simple, and seem to the under- 
signed to be every way adapted to fulfill the pur- 
poses of the founder, and to promote the welfare of 
the University. 

The first and principal duty which they assign to 
the new Professor, is that of conducting the religious 
services of the University, including at once the 
daily devotional exercises of the chapel, and the 
public worship of the Sabbath. In this respect, as 
need only be suggested, the Statutes provide rather 
for a transfer of existing duties, than for the creation 
of any new ones. The daily prayers and weekly 
worship of the University are now mainly conducted 
by the Professors of the Cambridge Theological 
School, who are paid for these extra-official services 
out of the general College funds. It seems to be 
understood that this school will soon be entirely 
divorced from the University ; and, even should this 
long-desired event be still further delayed, it can 
hardly fail to be more satisfactory to the Overseers, 
and to the community, that the religious exercises of 
the College should be under the charge of a single 
Professor selected with special reference to this par- 
ticular duty, rather than that they should be left to the 



14 

joint or to the alternate care of several Professors, 
however able or faithful, who are connected with a 
sectarian Seminary, and whose particular province 
may be to give instruction in dogmatic Theology. 

But apart from either of these views, it seems to 
the undersigned intrinsically fit and proper, that a 
Professor who is to have the peculiar care of the 
moral character and culture of the students, should 
be charged also with conducting the religious exer- 
cises of the University. In no other way could he 
hope to fulfill the purposes of his appointment so 
effectually. It is, moreover, a becoming and just 
recognition of the great truth, that there is no safe 
separation between morals and religion ; — a truth 
which the Father of his Country thought it not inap- 
propriate to commend so earnestly to attention in 
these memorable words of his Farewell Address : 

" And let us with caution indulge the supposition, 
that morality can be maintained without religion. 
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of 
refined education on minds of peculiar structure, 
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that, 
national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
principles." 

The undersigned would have had little confidence 
in the success of the Plummer Foundation, and 
little disposition to vindicate it from the objections 
which have been arrayed against it, if the Statutes 
had not provided that the Professor should be 
privileged, and should be required, to avail himself 
of every appropriate opportunity for bringing the 
sanctions of religion, and the precepts of the Bible, 



15 

• 

in aid of any moral influences which he may attempt 
to exert, or of any moral instruction which he may 
be called on to impart. 

Nor have they the slightest reason to doubt, that 
such an arrangement is entirely consistent with the 
intentions of the founder. Miss Caroline Plummer 
had plainly no idea of providing for the propagation 
of any mere philosophical morality. It was "Chris- 
tian character," on the basis of " Christian faith and 
love," which she desired and directed her Professor 
to promote. And how are Christian faith and love 
to be promoted and inculcated, without the exercises 
of religion and the observance of the Sabbath ? 

The other duties which are assigned to this Pro- 
fessor by the Rules and Statutes under consideration 
are more general in their nature, and such only as 
are distinctly expressed, or substantially indicated in 
the Will of the founder. With regard to these, 
therefore, there can be no question, if the bequest is 
to be accepted. 

The undersigned were disposed to doubt at first, 
whether the tenure of office prescribed in the Stat- 
utes was in exact accordance with the language of 
the Testatrix, which declares that the Professor 
" shall be elected by the President and Fellows, and 
approved by the Overseers of Harvard College for 
such a term of years as may, by them, be ordered." 
And there might still be room for a question whether 
these words do not require some limitation of the 
general tenure by which the Professors on other 
foundations hold their office. As this, however, is 
a matter of technical legal construction, which could 



16 

not have been adopted by the Corporation without 
passing under the consideration of the highest judi- 
cial authority in the State, your Committee have not 
been disposed to raise an issue upon it, — more 
especially as they entirely concur in the expediency 
of the tenure prescribed by the Statutes. 

Two questions have, however, been brought into 
discussion in the course of their deliberations, upon 
which they feel bound to say a few words before 
bringing their Report to a close. 

It has been suggested, in the first place, that the 
establishment of this Professorship is an interference 
with the Hollis Professorship of Divinity, and that 
certainly there can be no occasion for a new foun- 
dation of this sort while that Professorship remains 
vacant. 

The undersigned have no intention of entering 
at any length into the vexed subject of the Hollis 
Professorship. The responsibility of initiating all 
measures upon this and other Professorships rests 
exclusively upon the Corporation, and your Com- 
mittee do not feel called upon to pronounce judg- 
ment upon the policy which the Corporation have 
thought fit to pursue, either in filling the Hollis 
Professorship heretofore, or in leaving it vacant now. 
But they cannot omit to say that, in their humble 
opinion, the two Professorships are entirely different 
and distinct in their nature and objects. The Hollis 
Professorship is emphatically a Theological Pro- 
fessorship, and the first and principal duty of the 
Professor is " to instruct the students in the several 
parts of Theology by reading a system of positive, 



17 

and a course of controversial Divinity." It can 
hardly be denied, too, that the Hollis Professorship 
is, in some sense and to some extent, a secta- 
rian Professorship, — notwithstanding the liberal and 
catholic views of its benevolent and excellent founder, 
for the period in which he lived. His own statutes 
provide that no one can be appointed to the Pro- 
fessorship who is not " in communion with some 
Christian Church of one of the three denominations, 
Congregational, Presbyterian, or Baptist." Now it 
might be difficult to say how many of the existing 
religious denominations of the world are included 
by such a definition, but it is obvious to everybody 
that more than one of them would be excluded. 

It is true, that by a vote passed by the Corpora- 
tion and Overseers in 1804, it was made "the duty 
of the Hollis Professor of Divinity to preach, and to 
perform other divine services in the chapel, before 
the officers, graduates and undergraduates, on the 
Lord's Day, forenoon and afternoon, whenever the 
same shall be hereafter required by the Corpora-; 
tion and Overseers." But this duty was expressly 
dependent upon the pleasure of the two bodies 
which passed it. It was no part of the duties pre- 
scribed by Hollis in his own statutes. On the 
contrary, it may well be doubted whether it was not 
in direct contravention of those statutes, which, after 
providing for lectures on " positive, controversial 
and casuistical Divinity," and for answering the 
questions of the students " on cases of conscience 
or controversies of religion," go on expressly to 
declare that " the Professor of Divinity, while in 
3 



18 

office, shall not be a tutor in any other science, 
or obliged to any other attendance in the College 
than the above-mentioned Public and Private Lec- 
tures" 

The undersigned can perceive no conflict or inter- 
ference whatever between the legitimate duties of 
the Hollis Professorship, whenever it shall again be 
filled, or of any other existing Professorship, and 
those of the new Professor on the Plummer Foun- 
dation. 

It has been suggested, in the second place, that 
the bequest of Miss Plummer is insufficient for the 
support of her Professorship, and that the duties 
assigned to it cannot be rightfully paid for, in whole 
or in part, out of the Academic Funds. 

Now no question about salary has been submitted 
to the action of the Overseers. But it is quite too 
plain to be denied or overlooked, that neither five 
per cent., nor six per cent., upon Fifteen Thousand 
Dollars, would be an adequate salary for the Profes- 
sorship now in contemplation. It cannot be doubted, 
therefore, that some portion of that salary is to be 
paid out of the general funds of the College, and the 
Overseers are not at liberty to close their eyes to 
this fact in giving their assent to the establishment 
of the Professorship. But the undersigned can find 
no ground of objection to the measure on this 
account. The religious exercises of the College 
have always been a charge upon the Academic funds, 
to a greater or less extent, and they always ought 
to be, until some other and sufficient funds are pro- 
vided for the purpose. At the present moment, as 



19 

has already been stated, the Professors of the Theo- 
logical School are paid from the common treasury of 
the University for conducting the very services 
which are now to be transferred to the Plummer 
Professor, and a considerable sum is also paid from 
the same source for providing accommodations in 
other churches in Cambridge for those students 
whose parents or guardians do not wish them to 
attend Sunday worship in the College chapel. 

It would certainly be desirable that the general 
funds of the College should be relieved from these 
charges, if separate and adequate foundations exist- 
ed, or could be supplied, for the purpose. But it 
will hardly be contended on any side, that the daily 
or the weekly worship of God should be altogether 
abandoned, and all religious exercises discontinued, 
until special endowments for this exclusive object 
shall have been obtained. This would be to reverse 
the whole usage of the University during two centu- 
ries and a quarter of honored and prosperous exist- 
ence. It would be to reverse the whole propriety 
and fitness of things in such an Institution. In the 
opinion of the undersigned, the worship of God is 
the first thing, and not the last thing, to be provided 
for, in a great seminary of learning ; and the religious 
instructions of the Sabbath are as much a part of 
any true system of education as the recitations and 
lectures of the week-day. 

The particular management of the funds of 
the College, and the whole appropriation of sala- 
ries, have for a long course of years been left 
exclusively to the Corporation. How far it might 



20 

be in the power of the Overseers to control them in 
this matter, is a question which it is not necessary 
to consider on this occasion. But if there be any 
thing which, in the opinion of the undersigned, 
would demand the interposition of this Board to the 
full extent of its powers, it would be the failure of 
the Corporation to make adequate provision, out of 
the general funds of the College, for supplying any 
deficiency which may exist in the means which may 
have been specially appropriated to maintaining the 
stated devotional exercises of the chapel. Harvard 
College would hardly know itself, — its founders, 
were they still in the flesh, would disown it, — good 
men everywhere would renounce all respect for it 
and all relations with it, if no voice of morning or 
evening prayer or praise were to be heard within its 
halls, and no guidance and guardianship of Wisdom 
from above were to be daily or nightly implored, for 
those who, at so critical a period of their lives, are 
withdrawn from the parental roof, and gathered 
within its gates. 

The undersigned esteem it a subject for special 
congratulation, that a foundation has at length been 
laid, which will render these services perpetual. It 
has come with peculiar grace and beauty, as the 
pious tribute of a true-hearted sister to the memory 
of a beloved brother. That such a bequest should 
be rejected, or that it should be received with any- 
thing but cordial gratitude, by either branch of the 
College government, is hardly to be credited. It is 
easy, indeed, to speculate upon the injurious influ- 
ences which might result from the perversion of such 



21 

a foundation, and to conjure up forms of evil or of 
wrong which might be produced by its intentional 
abuse. It must be acknowledged, too, that the 
measure is to a certain degree experimental in some 
of its features, and that its ultimate results must 
depend on the discretion, devotion, and fidelity with 
which it shall be carried out. But no one will deny 
that it is an experiment in the right direction, — that 
it is eminently worthy of being tried, and that the 
blessing of Heaven may be confidently invoked for 
its success. 

The undersigned, for themselves, have no hesita- 
tion in welcoming the Plummer Foundation, as now 
proposed to be established, and in connection with 
the erection of the new Chapel, for which means 
have been recently provided by the munificence of a 
late esteemed and respected Boston merchant, as 
affording a promise and an assurance of improve- 
ments in the condition .of the University, which 
should be hailed with the highest satisfaction by all 
who are interested in its best welfare. 

With these views they conclude by offering the 
following resolutions to the consideration of the 
Board : 

Resolved, That the Overseers do cordially and 
gratefully concur with the Corporation in the accept- 
ance of the bequest of the late Miss Caroline Plum- 
mer, and in the establishment of a new Professorship 
agreeably to the terms of that bequest. 

Resolved, That the Overseers do assent to " the 
Rules and Statutes of the office of Preacher to the 



22 

University and Plummer Professor of Christian 
Morals," which have been submitted to them by the 
Corporation. 

All which is respectfully submitted by 

ROBERT C. WIN TIIROP, 
SIMON BROWN, 
ABBOTT LAWRENCE, 
THOMAS RUSSELL. 

Boston, April 11, 1855. 



The foregoing Report having been read and debated at 
length, the question on the two Resolutions was taken sepa- 
rately and by Yeas and Nays, as follows : 

On the first Resolution, 

Yeas, — His Honor the Lieut. Governor, the President of 
the University, the Treasurer of the University, Hon. Daniel 
W. Alvord, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Rev. Dr. Gannett, 
Hon. Samuel Hoar, Hon. David Sears, Hon. Abbott Law- 
rence, Rev. Thomas Worcester, Hon. Francis Bassett, Hon. 
George S. Boutwell, Hon. Samuel D. Bradford, Rev. S. M. 
Worcester, D. D., Rev. Dr. Blagden, Rev. Nathaniel Cogs- 
well, Hon. George Morey, Hon. Thomas Russell, Hon. 
Emory Washburn, Hon. Henry B. Wheelwright, Hon. 
N. B. Shurtleff,— 21. 

Nays, The President of the Senate, Rev. Rodney A. 
Miller,— 2. 

On the second Resolution, 

Yeas,— His Honor the Lieut. Governor, the President of 



23 

the University, the Treasurer of the University, Hon. Robert 
C. Winthrop, - Rev. Dr. Gannett, Hon. Samuel Hoar, Hon. 
David Sears, Hon. Abbott Lawrence, Rev. Thomas Worces- 
ter, Hon. Francis Bassett, Hon. George S. Boutwell, Rev. 
Samuel M. Worcester, D. D., Rev. Dr. Blagden, Rev. 
Nathaniel Cogswell, Hon. George Morey, Hon. Thomas 
Russell, Hon. Emory Washburn, Hon. Henry B. Wheel- 
wright, Hon. N. B. Shurtleff,— 19. 

Nays, — The President of the Senate, Hon. Daniel W. 
Alvord, Rev. Rodney A. Miller, Hon. Samuel D. Brad- 
ford,— 4. 

The Resolutions reported by the Committee having thus 
been adopted, the following additional Resolution was then 
moved by the Rev. Dr. Blagden : 

Resolved, That, provided the necessary funds be offered, 
the Hollis Professorship, in the opinion of the Board, ought 
to be filled in accordance with the intention of the founder. 

The Yeas and Nays having been ordered, the Resolution 
was adopted, as follows : 

Yeas, — His Honor the Lieut. Governor, the President of 
the Senate, the Treasurer of the University, Hon. Daniel W. 
Alvord, Rev. Rodney A. Miller, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, 
Hon. Samuel Hoar, Hon. David Sears, Hon. Abbott Law- 
rence, Rev. Thomas Worcester, Hon. Erancis Bassett, Hon. 
George S. Boutwell, Hon. Samuel D. Bradford, Rev. Samuel 
M. Worcester, D. D., Rev. Dr. Blagden, Rev. Nathaniel 
Cogswell, Hon. George Morey, Hon. Thomas Russell, Hon. 
Emory Washburn, Hon. Henry B. Wheelwright, Hon. 
N. B. Shurtleff,— 20. 

Nays,— 0. 

The President of the University, Rev. Dr. Gannett, and 
Rev. Dr. Ballou were excused from voting for reasons given. 



24 

The question was then taken on concurring with the Cor- 
poration, in the appointment of the Rev. Frederick D. Hunt- 
ington as Preacher to the University and Plummer Professor 
of Christian Morals, when it appeared that the whole number 
of ballots was 24, of which 22 were in the affirmative, and 
2 in the negative, and there was one blank. The nomina- 
tion of the Pev. Frederick D. Huntington was accordingly 
declared to be confirmed. 



t!S, R .£. RY 0F CONGRESS 



029 892 519 9 



